Precision in language, and the politics of science

Science does not speak; only scientists speak. Philosophy does not speak; only philosophers speak. Fields do not exist independent of people. Also, they do not speak with one voice, unless there is only one person in the field in question. Disagreement is a sign that more than one person has committed their subjective minds- their potentially fallible reasoning on the basis of potentially incomplete knowledge, understanding, interpretations, and experience, whatever these may be, to thinking about the same topic. Of course, even speaking of knowledge and experience is potentially a verbal shortcut, a way for imprecision to enter our concepts and make misunderstanding more likely; to speak of our knowledge and experience, singular, is to speak of mental categories into which we place the reality of individual things known and experience. When you can speak of a single category that encompasses multiple real things, or of the real things directly, choose the latter if you want to be as precise as possible in saying what you mean, and the former if you want to be understood by people in general. The important thing is not that you always speak with precision, but that you think with precision, and that requires attentiveness to the nuances of words and their meanings. For instance, the difference between saying ‘science says this,’ and ‘scientists say this.’ Science says nothing, it is neither an entity that can speak for itself, nor is it singular. It is a category for a method for understanding reality, and the multiple, interconnected fields of study in which this method is used; the method is one created and applied by human beings. The method and the fields in which it is applied are valuable to human beings for the increased accuracy of our understanding of the physical world and universe, but they are inextricable from us. Speaking of them as if they were is to suggest they are singular, monolithic and above human disputes, none of which are accurate.

As a writer- reflections on lazy writing

As a writer, you have to ask yourself, ‘What am I trying to say? And how can I put my ideas into sentences, following one after another, in a way that will take my reader’s hand and lead them to a conclusion- to a realization- that comes to them with a greater level of clarity than I myself experienced at the first blush of epiphany?’ Good writing is limpid, lucid, and as light as a sash in the wind. It does not settle on the floor of the reader’s mind and require muddling through, like an unwieldy mass of covers in the morning. It is not intellectualism, it is transparent transmission of ideas that floats from one mind to the other. It is written as accessible- as well, as clearly- as possible, so that it is nearly effortless. In looking over this blog so far, I have realized I have used a muddle of words. Initially, my self-justification was, ‘these are just the raw stuff of what comes out of my head, I can’t spend too much time editing it, that is what my manuscripts are for.’ But this is an excuse for lazy writing. Run-on sentences and unnecessarily long words are short-cuts many intellectuals, or would-be intellectuals (including myself) use to express themselves more swiftly. But they are also lazy, both as writing and as thinking. They sacrifice clarity, not for the sake of brevity, compression, or precision- not for the sake of making one’s thought accessible- but for the sake of thinking less. Which is another way of saying, editing less. Writing is thinking, and spending more time going over one can improve the other. That is, if you know how to edit! So, this shall be my test.